David Murdock Column: On taking a rest (and keeping an eye off the clock)
Like most people today, my life is in constant motion. There’s always something I need to do. Whether it’s a major project or some simple, minor errand — there’s always something.
And — again like most people today — I don’t realize how tired I get from all the running around. Until that bone-tiredness is called to my attention. Several things have happened recently that brought my attention to all the small little things that grind me down and wear me out without my realizing it.
One big thing that happened last week is that my trusty car broke down … on a Saturday, no less. I don’t know if y’all have ever tried, but it’s difficult to find a mechanic open on a weekend, and it’s nigh impossible to find a car rental place here that’s open on Saturday or Sunday.
The whole episode taught me that my life if more tightly scheduled than I realized. All those personal errands I run on weekends? Well, those plans went right out the window. For well over 24 hours, I was forced to stay at home.
One of the things I remember imperfectly from my physics classes back in the day is that “a body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest, unless acted on by an outside force.” I think that’s Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion, but don’t quote me on that one. Anyway, I’m going to use it metaphorically and not scientifically — my physical body might have been acted upon, in a way, to stop its motion … but the thoughts in my head kept moving. For a little while.
That’s been my experience lately — I’ve never really realized all the things, big and small, that keep our minds in motion … even when our physical bodies are at rest.
I kept worrying about those errands I couldn’t run until sometime on Sunday morning — those thoughts were enough to nag at me, but not to really disturb my sleep. They were just irritating.
Sometime on Sunday morning, a peaceful feeling started creeping in, and I did start to get some actual rest after a while.
Fast forward to this morning — this column is not the one I intended to write. I’ll save that one for another time. But today’s devotional in “Our Daily Bread” taught me — one more time, since I’m such a slow learner in these matters — that the Sabbath rest is there for a very good reason. The Scripture centered on Genesis 2:2 — “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Elisa Morgan, the writer, titled it, “Permission to Rest.”
It’s that word “permission” that really caught my attention. The Lord has given us “permission to rest.” We’re allowed a rest on the Sabbath. Take a rest. Don’t do anything. It’s OK. Don’t worry about it.
Over the past decade, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of the “Sunday scaries.” I’m not sure exactly where the phrase came from, but it’s that dread and anxiety that starts to creep in on Sunday afternoons because the next day is … Monday. It seems to me to be more guilt than anything. We Americans have convinced ourselves that we should be working all the time, and we consequently feel guilty when we’re not doing something “productive.”
There’s even a term for it: productivity guilt. I’ve been seeing that one in media over the last year. It’s that general feeling that we’re just not doing enough, and if we simply work just a little bit harder — or smarter, in some formulations — we’ll be able to live these amazing lives. Consequently, there are countless articles and books on how to “get things done” in less time. That’s when I really noticed how much I glance at a clock over the course of my days.
Perhaps that’s why the most relaxing parts of my weeks are often … when I’m writing these columns. I enjoy it. It’s a hobby of sorts for me, and I treasure the 60 to 90 minutes it takes to write them. Consequently, I’ve gotten fairly efficient at turning one out in that amount of time, and I still don’t know exactly where the columns come from — they just do, and I trust that they will. The whole process is relaxing.
But I always have my eye on the clock when I’m writing. They must be finished in that allotted amount of time so I can start preparing to go to work. And they are. Once the column is finished, I look forward to writing the one for next week.
Last weekend, though, I was prevented from actually completing my schedule. Sunday morning, I read. And I enjoyed that reading more than any reading I’ve done in a long time.
Of course, it’s difficult for me to read anything these days without the thought in the back of my mind of how I’m going to use what I’m reading in the classroom. That’s just a given, but I deeply enjoyed the book I read. It rested me.
David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted atmurdockcolumn@yahoo.com. The opinions reflected are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: David Murdock looks at the need for rest
